AND NOW THE SHIPPING FORECAST ISSUED BY THE MET.OFFICE AT 0505 ON TUESDAY 31 JULY 2001

THERE ARE WARNINGS OF GALES IN FINISTERRE

THE GENERAL SYNOPSIS AT 0100 SHALLOW LOW TYNE 1017 MOVING RATHER QUICKLY EASTSOUTHEAST AND FILLING. ATLANTIC LOW MOVING STEADILY NORTHEAST EXPECTED 150 MILES WEST OF SOUTH BAILEY 1014 BY 0100 TOMORROW. NEW LOW EXPECTED SOUTHEAST FINISTERRE 1012 BY SAME TIME

THE AREA FORECASTS FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS

VIKING NORTH UTSIRE SOUTH UTSIRE NORTHEAST FORTIES WEST OR NORTHWEST 4 OR 5. SHOWERS. GOOD

Well since I got back to work out here in North Africa, its been hot, damned hot. Today though its exceeded that and is now chuffing hot. Difficult to say what the temp is cos the thermometer burst a while back. Its often windy as well, the winding is also chuffing hot and contains half a ton of sand in each gust, this mean that we never have to buy overpriced cleansing products that promise to remove dead skin and so on, we just go outside for 5 minutes with t shirt off. Oh yes, no clouds, just perfect blue.

It's glorious in southern New Jersey this last day of July. Very low humidity; early morning temperature of low 60s; expected high is 83; sunny; light breeze. Had fresh Jersey blueberries for breakfast and will have a fresh Jersey peach for lunch. Life is good!

I am sitting at work looking out on to West Parliament Square in Edinburgh. The tourists are flooding the place and most look quite happy - nice. There is a young man sitting beside St Giles Cathedral playing a clarsach - I think the tune is "Dark Island" - which lends an air of serenity to a chaotic scene.

It has just clouded over after a morning of blue skies and scuddy white clouds. It is very warm but, judging by the past few days, it will rain before dark. Edinburgh seems to have missed out on the heatwave so far.

Here in the north of Scotland, 50 miles north of Inverness that is, the weather is rubbish. Once again it rained to-day for a short time. I don't think that we've had any more than 10 days without rain since end of May, this is without doubt the most miserable summer I can remember. I'm going over to Boston and points north from 6th September for 2 weeks, so it will probably rain there too. Excuse me Mudcatters but I'm feeling paranoid.

You know what they say, "Just because nobody's getting at you; don't mean you can't feel paranoid"

Just came in again to have a look, thanks Shields Folk for that lovely poetry the Shipping Forecast. Used to go to sleep listening and making my way down through the cold North Sea passing Shields on the way and heading south to Plymouth and round into the Irish Sea and I seldom made it to Malin, out like a light. Lovely, better than counting bloody sheep. Slan Ard Mhacha.

Hot! Mostly dry. I have to water every day, and my miniture rosebush is failing. The only thing in my garden that seems to be doing well is the aloe vera. It's been in the low 100's, down to about mid 80's at night. Did I say hot?

In the north Texas area, late summer takes on the smell of dried grass and hot asphalt. We try to do all of our travelling after sundown, and even the the kids have become nocturnal creatures. I'm a mom, so I never sleep, and sunrise and dusk are my favorite parts of the day this season.

Anyone in a northern clime wish to summer in Texas? We'll do a time share thing.....

...we've started a hurricane watch here on the Gulf. 120 days left in hurricane season. TS Barry seems to be going towards Louisianna but recent forcast models indicate a northerly turn. Still too soon to tell. It's hot and sunny but the rain is due tomorrow. I'm going to Gainesville to play autoharps since I can't get away longer for Clifftop...wish I was there....harpgirl

I was hoping we'd make it through this summer without one of these episodes, but it's Ohio and in the midwest, this is the way of things. We have now had a 110 degree difference in temperature this year so all is about normal.

I hate the weather dudes on the tube............

"There's some relief coming as the cold front moves through.".......Lemmee ask you if 5 degrees seems like relief? When the humidity is at the 80-90 level, who cares?

or

"We have the potential for some thunderstorms popping during the evening hours and of course this time of year severe weather including flash floods and tornados."........Yeah, great....at least the wind will be blowing.

or

"Thunderstorm activity will be scattered and I hope it doesn't interfere with your fun wherever you are.".........Fun? Sweating your ass off is fun? What did I miss here?

What he's referring to is the State Fair now in progress. I love County Fairs and Ohio has lots along with assorted festivals. My county has there fair in October......cool weather, fall colors, a beutiful od time red roofed permanent fairgrounds...it's a postcard from another era. But the state fair???? It's August, it's hot. It's dry and dusty, but the humidity allows the dust to cake on you like a clay colored "Man-Tan." Then it pours down rain and the place turns to mud. But the sun pops out about twice as hot with the extra humidity and the mud dries quickly leaving you once again covered in dust. I haven't gone to the damn thing in 35 years and I'm still trying to get the crud off from that time!

Still, I'm an Ohio boy and I've lived a lot of other places..................but home is home ain't it?

What catspaw said, only in New Jersey. And no rain. It's time for the annual drought. At least I have a deep well and really cold water. I can go lie in the tub for an hour. And to continue his gripe about the weather reporters: why do they have to deliver bad news with a smile? HOW ABOUT THOSE TORNADOES IN TEXAS, HUH? HA HA, AND BOY IS IT HOT, A HUNDRED DEGREES HERE IN NJ AND NO RAIN FOR 6 MONTHS!!!!!HA HA HA, BUT IT'S AIR CONDITIONED HERE IN THE STUDIO, SO THE HELL WITH YOU VIEWERS OUT THERE!!!! I checked the Criminal Code book at work, and apparently, weather reporters are not exempt from the laws against murder or manslaughter. Our laws need updating.

My inside thermometer with outside sensor said 118F (47C?) today. I think it was a tad off as the bank thermometer only said 111. No rain, dry as a bone, and fires everywhere. I'm spending a lot of time in the pool.

Shields Folk, I spent three winters in sunny Sunderland just a couple of miles south of Shields and it was bloody perishing, but the warmest people you will ever meet. Right now in County Armagh Ireland 9pm it is a pleasant 60. Slan Ard Mhacha

'Fox, I am so sorry that I fouled up our meeting and all 'cause I sure could have used a shot of Goshen right now!!

It's still hot.......no breeze to amount to anything. Word is the weekend may get cooler although I'm waiting to see and not counting on it. We're all living down in the big den which is the only palce that's air conditioned. The main house ventilates well, but it's still way too damn hot. The fans upstairs blow hot air and I've got them all (but one) set to blow the air out of the house, but it's still pretty hopeless. I also notice that folks around town are getting crankier.......I am anyway.

(speaking of cranky) I'll let you do it this once, 'Spaw, but if I ever catch you apologizing for having an excellent reason to change our meeting date, I'll give you a dopeslap to the head worthy of Click and Clack, the Tappett brothers. OK? Probably just after we meet and hug. *G* Yeah, I guess we'll have to make do with our local brands today.

Just been to give blood, and I thought after that I'd have some good karma. No such luck. In the car on the way back, it started raining so hard that I had to slow down to 20 so I could see where I was going. Got back to work, still raining. Sat in the car for 5 minutes waiting for it to clear, still raining. So I thought I'd better get into work, rain or not. I was soaked to the skin by the time I'd locked the car door, and was utterly dripping by the time I reached the entrance. Lucky I did make the dash though - it's taken half an hour for that rain to stop!

Yesterday I spent the day on an excursion boat to Tracy Arm, a fjord about 40 miles from downtown Juneau. My face got a bit sunburnt, I see this morning. It was an absolutely gorgeous day.

We saw whales, orcas, bears, mountain goats; acquamarine water, glaciers piled 800 feet into the sky... They 'calved' several times while we watched, but the most spectacular thing was having a 'shooter' come roaring up from the very depths of the glacier. It was like being present at the birth of the world. It was tremendously big, longer than a city block, tall as a ship, and shiny as a satin wedding dress colored in an unbelievable shade of opalescent blue and silver. When you realize that the top of a glacier has been there for several hundred years, who knows how long it's been since the bottom of it has seen the light of day. As the captain said, I hope you realize this is a very big event!

Incidentally, to bring this back to music, we talked about how neat it would be to 'park' there and have a music party.

Guinnesschick, I live in what you might call a northern clime (so do Kendall and Jeri, for that matter- I notice it's taken until now for northern New England to post here!). Believe me, you don't want to swap. Not this week at any rate. The heat index for my region is supposed to reach 115 F today- no break until tmw night. I could use a bloody miserable rainy northern Scotland right about now. I'm coping like a newborn, tho- I took about the second nap of my life a little while ago- really slept for almost an hour. Later my kids and I are going shopping in the air conditioned stores (way up north here we don't generally invest in air conditioning- most summers there's not much point to it!). Guess I'll go give the dog a bath. At least I'll get wet!